Dogmatic Skeptics

[liamconnor]

Here is a (rather lengthy) quote from G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy:

Somehow or other an extraordinary idea has arisen that the disbelievers in miracles consider them coldly and fairly, while believers in miracles accept them only in connection with some dogma. The fact is quite the other way. The believers in miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them. The open, obvious, democratic thing is to believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a miracle, just as you believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a murder. The plain, popular course is to trust the peasant's word about the ghost exactly as far as you trust the peasant's word about the landlord. Being a peasant he will probably have a great deal of healthy agnosticism about both. Still you could fill the British Museum with evidence uttered by the peasant, and given in favour of the ghost. If it comes to human testimony there is a choking cataract of human testimony in favour of the supernatural. If you reject it, you can only mean one of two things. You reject the peasant's story about the ghost either because the man is a peasant or because the story is a ghost story. That is, you either deny the main principle of democracy, or you affirm the main principle of materialism-- the abstract impossibility of miracle. You have a perfect right to do so; but in that case you are the dogmatist. It is we Christians who accept all actual evidence--it is you rationalists who refuse actual evidence being constrained to do so by your creed. But I am not constrained by any creed in the matter, and looking impartially into certain miracles of mediaeval and modern times, I have come to the conclusion that they occurred. All argument against these plain facts is always argument in a circle. If I say, "Mediaeval documents attest certain miracles as much as they attest certain battles," they answer, "But mediaevals were superstitious"; if I want to know in what they were superstitious, the only ultimate answer is that they believed in the miracles. If I say "a peasant saw a ghost," I am told, "But peasants are so credulous." If I ask, "Why credulous?" the only answer is--that they see ghosts. Iceland is impossible because only stupid sailors have seen it; and the sailors are only stupid because they say they have seen Iceland. It is only fair to add that there is another argument that the unbeliever may rationally use against miracles, though he himself generally forgets to use it.

Do you agree or disagree with the thesis that Naturalists are dogmatic about their exclusion of the miraculous?

[Willum]

[Replying to post 7 by Mithrae]

The homicide rate in the USA is around 5 per 100,000 people per year. That's around 1 homicide for every 20,000 people per year, or in a given lifetime (80 years), around one per 250 people. From my experience, I get the impression that the numbers of people who claim to have personally experienced something 'supernatural' are probably more like one per five or ten people.

Pareidolia is common to everyone. "Filling in the blanks," via suggestion or by simply explaining a phenomenon with what one believes, is also very common, and your statement is easily a subset of this simplifying trait of humanity.

A primitive man sees a helicopter, it is obviously spiritual or divine.
Being fed religion since birth, most people are quick to ascribe something spiritual to things that aren't immediately explicable.

[Mithrae]

Where the heck are you guys getting all this "on the same level" nonsense? This is black and white thinking at its worst; what, either someone must believe that miracle testimonies have zero evidentiary value or else you think they're asserting them to be equal to science?

If the implication wasn't there, then why did you ask me if I have personally verified it, as opposed to just asking me if there was empirical evidence for it?

I thought that you were better than that, Bust Nak

I don't think the problem is on my side.

If you haven't seen empirical evidence for black holes, Everest, your grandparents and so on, then your answers to "Is there empirical evidence..." would simply be a statement of what you have read/heard from others.

There you go again! Empirical evidence I read about is simply a testimony. How is this not exactly what I was charging you with re: on the same level?

No, your belief that there is empirical evidence is based on testimony. You are the one seemingly equating your belief in empirical evidence with that empirical evidence itself.

If we could be bothered to look we could easily find plenty of claims about empirical evidence for 'supernatural' stuff: Videos of levitation, ghosts, angels and so on; before-and-after x-rays or other medical data of miraculous healings; strange circular formations with radioactive traces 'discovered' near purported UFO landing sites... Some of that stuff, like the videos, we could probably even see for ourselves, but for most of the rest we are thoroughly assured that the empirical evidence does exist and is incontrovertible. So are those cases of overwhelming empirical evidence for the claims, or merely testimony about alleged evidence?

Unless you see it for yourself you're relying on testimony. Aren't you? So the question is simply how strong and widely-corroborated that testimonial evidence is, relative to its in/consistency with our expectations and existing knowledge.

And obviously in many cases the answer would still be no: There is currently no empirical evidence that the people I know as my parents are biological relatives. In the case of dead relatives, for all intents and purposes there can't even be any such empirical evidence even if I had a mind to seek it. No doubt the same is true in your case - so do you disbelieve those claims of relationship due to the absence of empirical evidence, or do you accept the testimonial evidence?

Same answer as before, maybe, if it is consistent with empirical evidence, and yes if it is backed up with empirical evidence.

Do you disbelieve claims that Charles Darwin wrote Origin of Species, since there remains no empirical evidence for that either, or do you accept the testimonial evidence?

No, I do not disbelieve that. I accept testimonial evidence.

Good

On the other hand peer-reviewed papers do often contain errors, unreproducible results, misleading rhetoric or sometimes even outright fraud. So there are some people I know whose testimony I would consider more reliable than a randomly-selected published paper.

I found that very odd and surprising. If someone says one thing but a randomly-selected published paper says otherwise, that's a strike against the reliability of that person.

I wasn't thinking specifically about them directly contradicting each other, simply their reliability as individual sources of information. But even in the case of direct contradictions, considering that in some fields as many as three-quarters of peer-reviewed papers have results which cannot be reproduced by other researchers, if I were well-acquainted with someone experienced and trustworthy in a particular field I can certainly imagine taking their word directly over that of a random paper. Peer-reviewed work has the advantage, obviously, of having at least been glanced at by some reviewers in addition to the author/s, which in theory should weed out many of the worst problems (though on the other hand it has the disadvantage of possible confirmation bias; often only the most exciting positive results are published to the exclusion of negatives). Can you really not imagine scenarios in which an individual's testimony might be considered equally or even more reliable?

So the empirical evidence regarding UFOs is extremely weak. The testimonial evidence is quite weak too. But such testimonies are evidence: The large number of such reports make the alien visitation hypothesis considerably more plausible than if those reports did not exist at all. Don't they?

No? There could be double, triple the account of report and still it wouldn't be any more plausible. I'd sooner believe there is some government mind alteration experiments going on than aliens. What is going on here?

In fact by far the biggest problem with alien visitation (and especially alleged abductions) is simply that it doesn't mesh with our expectations; it simply doesn't make sense that an interstellar species would be so interested in secrecy and probing our posteriors. We think that if there were aliens visiting Earth, we'd hear more about it.

Granted, or as I would put it, absence of evidence is evidence of absence because evidence is expected.

I'm interested in your thoughts on this: Do you really apply the special pleading of denying testimonial evidence in specific cases like this, despite accepting it for the overwhelming majority of other things you know?

I don't think I am guilty of special pleading at all.

Or on reflection would be more partial towards my opinion that while the evidence is weak - too weak, in light of what we'd expect if alien visitation were true - the existence of those numerous testimonies does increase the plausibility of the visitation hypothesis compared with their absence?

No, not until they have empirical evidence to back it up. Pardon the pun, I found what you are saying here alien.

Fair enough - which always seems to be the end result of our discussions I often find your views to be somewhat extreme, but at least generally consistent.

In this case, it seems that what you are saying is your expectations/current knowledge are so firmly set that the available (somewhat weak) testimonial evidence and (extremely weak) empirical evidence regarding alien visitation don't merit its consideration as even a remote possibility. Is that a fair assessment? (By contrast I would consider it fairly improbable, but still a distinct possibility.)

If so, can you explain how you form or calibrate those yardsticks, and how they are measured against the available alien evidence? Obviously these will be fairly subjective measures which we rarely even consciously think about, so I for one would have difficulty trying to answer it, but it's still interesting to attempt.

[Divine Insight]

That is what you would need to expect people to believe if you want them to take miracles for granted.

Please show where I have ever said that people should take miracles for granted.

You didn't say it in those precise words, but as far as I can see you certainly implied it by the equivalencies you gave in your post #14:

From your post #14:

The fact is that overwhelmingly most of the things we know - about our family and friends, about current events, geography, history, economics, the sciences - are known not because we have specifically acquired empirical evidence of them but because we accept others' testimony as a valid source of information.

Here you are making an equivalence between things you believe do know about your family and friends with what you know about the sciences.

The problem is that most of what you know about your family and friends is based on what they have told you. So you are taking it for granted that what they are telling you is true, without considering that they could either be mistaken or outright lying.

Therefore you are "taking things for granted" even though you may not be aware of it.

And the reason this is a bad equivalency is because you appear to be assuming that the only way you can know anything about the sciences is by taking for granted that scientists are telling you the truth, in precisely the same way you might take for granted that your friends or family are telling you the truth.

The entire thesis of my previous posts was to point out that you don't need to take what scientists tell you for granted because you can look into it for yourself.

Apparently you and I are living in two totally different worlds. In my world the sciences can be verified if I care to take the time to look into it. Apparently in your world you just take what science teachers tell you as though it has precisely the same credibility (or unreliability) as what your family or friends might tell you.

All I'm saying is that this is a terribly false equivalency.

Basically what you are saying is that if someone tells you they saw a ghost, that's no different from a scientist telling you that F=ma.

In other words, you are "taking for granted" that someone telling you that they saw a ghost has precisely the equivalent credibility as scientific knowledge.

That appears to me what you have suggested in the quote from your post #14 above. You are suggesting an equivalency of credibility between what family and friends might tell you off-the-cuff with scientific knowledge that has been peer reviewed, tested, re-tested, and verified by countless individual non-biased scientists. Scientists who would love nothing more than to find a mistake in the results so they can receive their own Nobel Prize.

Just because you didn't use the actual words, "take for granted", when family or friends tells you that they saw a ghost, doesn't mean that's isn't precisely what you would need to be doing if you want to give their testimony the same level of credibility as verified scientific knowledge.

Plus, with scientific knowledge, you can go check into it yourself. With rumors of people having seen ghosts there is nothing you can do but take their word for it. (i.e. take for granted that what they are saying is true)

So you are implying that you "take for granted" the existence of ghosts if you are prepared to accept reports of ghost sightings to be just as credible as scientific knowledge.

Just because you didn't use those precise words doesn't mean that you didn't imply it in the equivalence of credibility you made

To even question the validity of the science like as if it can be placed on the same playing field as unverified testimony of miraculous events, is precisely the same as "renouncing the sciences".

Please show where I have ever said that unverified testimony of anything can be placed on the same playing field as science.


As I already indicated in my previous post, I am simply not going to bother with these pathetic strawmen you are trying to attribute to me.

Again, re-read your quote above that I posted above from your post #14. You have science listed as having the same credibility as testimony from family and friends.

So I'm not creating a strawman. You're the one who is trying to argue that scientific knowledge has no more credibility than random unverified testimony from family and friends.

That's just an extremely false equivalency.

Like I say, scientists would love nothing more than to prove each other wrong. That alone gives their reports far more credibility. If they can show a flaw in known science they become the next Einstein.

On the other hand, family and friends often have a seriously bad reputation of supporting each other's nonsense. And that's a demonstrable fact.

So there is no equivalency between the credibility of random testimony of family, friends or strangers, with the carefully peer-reviewed scientific knowledge. Knowledge that other scientists would LOVE to find an error with.

Nothing could make a scientist happier than to be able to show an error in a scientific finding or principle. That what scientists LIVE FOR!

Not only that, but as I have also pointed out, if science was wrong our technologies wouldn't work. So science can't even be wrong on the well-established principles that it lays claim to. That's simply not possible.

But friends and family can definitely be wrong about claiming to have seen a ghost or any so-called "miracle". So for you to claim that this can be listed as the same kind of "testimony" as scientific knowledge, is quite frankly, a gross error on your part.

Scientific knowledge is not anywhere near the same as "personal testimony". In fact, if one scientists make a claim and other scientists aren't permitted to look into it for themselves, then it isn't even accepted as "science".

So you have made a grave error in equating the personal testimony of family and friends (or even strangers) as having the same level of credibility as scientific knowledge.

That's just utterly ridiculous.

[Jagella]

[Replying to post 1 by liamconnor]

Do you agree or disagree with the thesis that Naturalists are dogmatic about their exclusion of the miraculous?

You haven't defined your terms. To clarify your question, I think it's best to define "naturalist," "dogmatic," and "miraculous." In the meantime, I will assume that a "naturalist" is a person who views the world as essentially material and that we learn about the world through our five senses. To be "dogmatic" is to insist that some proposition is true regardless of the evidence for or against that proposition. The "'miraculous" involves various extraordinary events described in the Bible such as Moses parting the Red Sea and Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.

So, do naturalists deny miracles based on some opinion that has no evidence for it? I'd say that generally naturalists have good reasons to be skeptical of the miraculous. Much chicanery has been employed by the promoters of the miraculous, and there is no solid, repeatable or testable evidence for anything miraculous. Personally I hold to no dogmas that miracles are impossible, but I am very skeptical that they have ever occurred. It seems more probable to me that miracles claims are either mistakes or lies than that some phenomenon unknown to modern science caused some religious person to do something that as far as we know never happens.

I should point out that naturalists are hardly the only people who might be skeptical of some miracle claims. After all, Christians are every bit as doubtful about miracle claims as naturalists are except for Christian miracles, of course. So in the very same way that naturalists don't buy the miracle claims of religions like Islam and Hinduism, Christians don't buy those miracle claims either.

In conclusion, I'd recommend that if anybody wants to convince skeptics that the Bible's claims are true, then offer good evidence and reasoning to support those claims. It won't do you much good to complain, moan, and cry that you cannot convince the unbelievers.

[H.sapiens]

Here is a (rather lengthy) quote from G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy:

Somehow or other an extraordinary idea has arisen that the disbelievers in miracles consider them coldly and fairly, while believers in miracles accept them only in connection with some dogma. The fact is quite the other way. The believers in miracles accept them (rightly or wrongly) because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them (rightly or wrongly) because they have a doctrine against them. The open, obvious, democratic thing is to believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a miracle, just as you believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a murder. The plain, popular course is to trust the peasant's word about the ghost exactly as far as you trust the peasant's word about the landlord. Being a peasant he will probably have a great deal of healthy agnosticism about both. Still you could fill the British Museum with evidence uttered by the peasant, and given in favour of the ghost. If it comes to human testimony there is a choking cataract of human testimony in favour of the supernatural. If you reject it, you can only mean one of two things. You reject the peasant's story about the ghost either because the man is a peasant or because the story is a ghost story. That is, you either deny the main principle of democracy, or you affirm the main principle of materialism-- the abstract impossibility of miracle. You have a perfect right to do so; but in that case you are the dogmatist. It is we Christians who accept all actual evidence--it is you rationalists who refuse actual evidence being constrained to do so by your creed. But I am not constrained by any creed in the matter, and looking impartially into certain miracles of mediaeval and modern times, I have come to the conclusion that they occurred. All argument against these plain facts is always argument in a circle. If I say, "Mediaeval documents attest certain miracles as much as they attest certain battles," they answer, "But mediaevals were superstitious"; if I want to know in what they were superstitious, the only ultimate answer is that they believed in the miracles. If I say "a peasant saw a ghost," I am told, "But peasants are so credulous." If I ask, "Why credulous?" the only answer is--that they see ghosts. Iceland is impossible because only stupid sailors have seen it; and the sailors are only stupid because they say they have seen Iceland. It is only fair to add that there is another argument that the unbeliever may rationally use against miracles, though he himself generally forgets to use it.

Do you agree or disagree with the thesis that Naturalists are dogmatic about their exclusion of the miraculous?

Dogmatic? No. Skeptical? Yes.

[Mithrae]

That is what you would need to expect people to believe if you want them to take miracles for granted.

Please show where I have ever said that people should take miracles for granted.

You didn't say it in those precise words, but as far as I can see you certainly implied it by the equivalencies you gave in your post #14:

From your post #14:

The fact is that overwhelmingly most of the things we know - about our family and friends, about current events, geography, history, economics, the sciences - are known not because we have specifically acquired empirical evidence of them but because we accept others' testimony as a valid source of information.

Here you are making an equivalence between things you believe do know about your family and friends with what you know about the sciences.

No, I'm not I decided to sleep on this and try my utmost to give you the benefit of the doubt and remain polite, and this is what I've managed to come up with:

In spite of my numerous previous and subsequent posts clearly explaining that I am talking about what you or I or Bust Nak as individuals personally know - this was a key highlighted point in my initial post to Bust Nak which you jumped in on - somehow you must have interpreted that 'we' above as referring to people generally.

That is the only generous explanation I can come up with for your misunderstanding; obviously in that case it would be wildly incorrect to say that 'we' (humanity) know scientific facts only on the basis of testimonial evidence. Was that the manner in which you interpreted my comment?

If not... well, my comments would have to be considerably less generous. But I hope that this was somehow the source of your misunderstanding, and I hope that you'll be able to move past it. As a general rule of thumb, if you are thinking that a person 'said' one thing and they have clearly told you that they did not, unless you can actually quote where they said it, it might be wiser to allow for your own misunderstanding rather than bulling forwards with such insulting and breathtakingly inaccurate accusations as you have tried to lay against me

[Furrowed Brow]

Here's my imaginary conversation with G.K. Chesterton.

The open, obvious, democratic thing is to believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a miracle, just as you believe an old apple-woman when she bears testimony to a murder.

Just off the bat why believe anything the old woman had to say? It is not obvious or democratic that we believe her. It may be open but then it may be also be absolutely undiscerning.

The plain, popular course is to trust the peasant's word about the ghost exactly as far as you trust the peasant's word about the landlord.

What has popular got to do with it? And I would not off the bat trust the old woman about the landlord. It is true to say "the old woman said [...fill in the gap...] about the landlord".

If it comes to human testimony there is a choking cataract of human testimony in favour of the supernatural.

There is human testimony in favour of aliens, big foot, chupacabra, loch ness monster, Dover demon and many other non supernatural subjects all safely disbelieved. Any why would someone disbelieve these things...because of a doctrine that said they cannot exist....or because of our mistrust of tall tales told by other people? Lacking further evidence we do not accept the tall tale or remain agnostic it is quite safe to be a sceptic and await to be proved wrong. So before invoking naturalism to reject strange tales we first point to the quirky unreliability of human nature.

If you reject it, you can only mean one of two things. You reject the peasant's story about the ghost either because the man is a peasant or because the story is a ghost story.

Yes it is rejected because it is a ghost story and for the reason of quirky unreliability given above. Moreover given the books and movies the evidence is overwhelming that humans love a ghost story. That propensity alone is reason to be ultra cautious about any claim ghosts are real.

That is, you either deny the main principle of democracy,...

The main principle of democracy is you get to make your own decision...not follow a crowd and sadly the crowd are often let down. If a million people are wrong and one person is right....then the minority is right.

...or you affirm the main principle of materialism-- the abstract impossibility of miracle.

Yes I do and to be true I am dogmatic about this. But before invoking anti miracle dogma there is that other hurdle - quirky unreliable human nature that loves a tall tale. This is the part of human nature that interprets real stuff with a far more exciting supernatural narrative or weird and alien narrative. This is how we get urban myths like sewer gators. It is kind of more fun to think there are gators down in them sewers than leave the sewers a system of effluent disposal. Without the gator story sewers are a bit boring.

You have a perfect right to do so; but in that case you are the dogmatist. It is we Christians who accept all actual evidence--

No you don't Mr Chesterton. What you do is ignore the human capacity to fool themselves and at the same time refuse to look beyond testimony for actual evidence before you make your decision to accept the testimony.

...it is you rationalists who refuse actual evidence being constrained to do so by your creed.

You do not understand what counts as evidence sir. Compare these testimonies:

• Joe's Testimony 1: "I went to a faith healing and witnessed many miracles"
  
  Joe's Testimony 2:"I saw the loch ness monster".
  
  Joe's Testimony 3:"I saw a pink flying elephant".
  
  Joe's Testimony 4: "I didn't kill my wife"
  
  Joe's Testimony 5: "I saw Moe kill my wife then shoot himself"

None of these claims can be taken on face value and without further evidence all should be treated as unreliable for all sorts of variables and motivations including deceit and self delusion. Thus none are evidence of what they claim. We test the claim with evidence. The correct response is to admit that if we assume Joe is sincere then he believes he is telling the truth, and if he is not sincere then each claim is what he wants us to believe. Without further information three things may be true: 1) there is a genuine error 2) there is a lie 3) the testimony is accurate. Two out of three lead to a false result. A point which means that lacking further information it is rational to remain sceptical.

If you think of all those crime procedural dramas like CSI that spend an hour testing the evidence to check what someone is saying is true. The basic testimony is not the evidence.

If I say, "Mediaeval documents attest certain miracles as much as they attest certain battles," they answer, "But mediaevals were superstitious";

If a biography of Julius cases claims he was a great leader and was an astute general at the battle of the Nile we need to question how much of that claim is 1) in genuine error based on false reports, 2) a lie i.e propaganda, 3) true. If the claim is Stalin murdered 40 million people we again have to pass it through the three questions. If the claim is the USS Maddox was attacked at the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 this too needs to be assessed, not immediately assumed true. As to the claim of miracles in ancient texts they are no more or less reliable than a claim by a modern Christian that they witnessed miracles at faith healing and we go back to assessing which of the three points is most appropriate. Given no more information we must reman sceptical if we wish to be rational.

[Divine Insight]

In spite of my numerous previous and subsequent posts clearly explaining that I am talking about what you or I or Bust Nak as individuals personally know - this was a key highlighted point in my initial post to Bust Nak which you jumped in on - somehow you must have interpreted that 'we' above as referring to people generally.

This is a public debate forum. You are supposed to be debating in generalities. If you want to have a private conversation with Bust Nak you should send him a PM.

My point stands. The things you said in your post do not hold up in general.

In fact, I even made clear that they really don't even hold up for any individuals actually. If an individual thinks that their knowledge of science comes solely from testimonies they have heard they simply aren't paying attention to the real world around them.

We (meaning any humans) don't need to take anyone's testimony to know that scientific knowledge is true and correct. Therefore to make an equivalency between the credibility of what friends and family might tell us with scientific knowledge is simply wrong. This conclusion is wrong for every individual on earth. No matter who they are. If they think that unverified testimony from family, friends, or even strangers, has the same credibility as known science they are simply wrong.

It's really not open to opinion.

This type of argument is nothing more than extremely bad and false religious apologetics. That's where these kinds of arguments come from. This whole notion that science is nothing more than the arbitrary opinions of individuals scientists that we need to believe on faith is nothing more than an apologetic falsehood.

This very notion is a lie perpetrated by religious zealots.

Please note: I am not implying that you are a religious zealot who is purposefully perpetrating a lie. However, I am suggesting that if you support this apologetic falsehood, then you are loaning your support to a lie, whether you realize this or not.

Scientific knowledge is not the mere opinions of individual scientists that must be accepted on faith. Just because some people might take science classes thinking that this is the case, that doesn't make it so.

Science is not a religious dogma.

Religion is.

And G.K. Chesterton is a Christian Apologist and Lay Theologian who has obviously fallen for the lie that science is nothing more than opinionated dogma that has no more credibility than ancient stories that cannot be verified.

[Divine Insight]

To Address the OP again:


G.K. Chesterton makes the following claim:

If I say, "Mediaeval documents attest certain miracles as much as they attest certain battles," they answer, "But mediaevals were superstitious"; if I want to know in what they were superstitious, the only ultimate answer is that they believed in the miracles. If I say "a peasant saw a ghost," I am told, "But peasants are so credulous." If I ask, "Why credulous?" the only answer is--that they see ghosts. Iceland is impossible because only stupid sailors have seen it; and the sailors are only stupid because they say they have seen Iceland. It is only fair to add that there is another argument that the unbeliever may rationally use against miracles, though he himself generally forgets to use it.

The part I have highlighted in bold red in G.K. Chesterton's quote is actually quite false. That is not the only ultimate answer to why or how we can know that these stories are nothing more than superstitious fables.

What G.K. Chesterton fails to acknowledge is that these stories also contain many self-contradictory claims as well as other extreme absurdities. Such as a supposedly all-wise omniscient omnipotent God going along with these things, or supporting them in any way.

There are many reasons why these ancient tales have no credibility. It's a total lie for G.K. Chesterton to claim that the only ultimate reason is because these stories claim to have seen ghosts or miracles. That's not the only reason by far.

But G.K. Chesterton doesn't want to admit that there are very sound reasons for rejecting these ancient stories beyond just rejecting the miracles because that would defeat his entire argument.

~~~~~

I have been debating the Bible for decades. I am more than willing to allow that every "miracle" claimed by the Bible be "possible" (assuming that an omnipotent God is behind them).

The problem is that this doesn't help the Bible one iota. The Bible still makes no sense even allowing the miracles could be done.

So G.K. Chesterton's arguments wouldn't work against my rejections of the Bible.

He's simply wrong. I don't reject the Bible simply because it claims that miracles were performed. I can personally accept miracles if they actually made sense. But when we have a supposedly all-wise super-intelligent God performing utterly stupid, and often self-contradictory miracles, then we've got a serious problem with the dogma. And therein lies the real problem.

So G.K. Chesterton, and apologists like him, are denying the real problems with their religious dogma. They want to pretend that the only reason people are rejecting the Bible is because they don't allow for the possibility of miracles. But the problem is that allowing for miracles doesn't help the Bible anyway.

[Mithrae]

In spite of my numerous previous and subsequent posts clearly explaining that I am talking about what you or I or Bust Nak as individuals personally know - this was a key highlighted point in my initial post to Bust Nak which you jumped in on - somehow you must have interpreted that 'we' above as referring to people generally.

This is a public debate forum. You are supposed to be debating in generalities. If you want to have a private conversation with Bust Nak you should send him a PM.

My point stands. The things you said in your post do not hold up in general.

In fact, I even made clear that they really don't even hold up for any individuals actually. If an individual thinks that their knowledge of science comes solely from testimonies they have heard they simply aren't paying attention to the real world around them.

We (meaning any humans) don't need to take anyone's testimony to know that scientific knowledge is true and correct. Therefore to make an equivalency between the credibility of what friends and family might tell us with scientific knowledge is simply wrong. This conclusion is wrong for every individual on earth. No matter who they are.

"Every individual on earth"? I'm not entirely sure why, but you are displaying a profound misunderstanding and fundamental disrespect towards scientific knowledge. Or maybe you just don't understand much about how some people on this planet live. As a kid I used to tag along with my grandfather in his truck delivering petrol to remote communities in the Australian outback; I'd be surprised if half the folk living there had even heard of stuff like valence shell electron theory.

Your notion that this scientific knowledge should be viewed as some kind of dogma, something which every person on earth should consider unquestionable truth, is both utterly absurd in itself and utterly unscientific.